The present invention relates generally to the purification of DNA by solid phase extraction, and more specifically to silicon-containing materials which are capable of binding DNA and eluting DNA under suitable conditions.
The preparation of high-purity double-stranded (ds) plasmid DNA, single-stranded (ss) phage DNA, chromosomal DNA and agarose gel-purified DNA fragments is of critical importance in molecular biology. Ideally, a method for purifying DNA should be simple, rapid and require little, if any, additional sample manipulation. DNA rendered by such a method should be immediately amenable to transformation, restriction analysis, ligation or sequencing. A method with all of these features would be extremely attractive in the automation of DNA sample preparation, a goal of research and diagnostic laboratories. Typically, the preparation of plasmid DNA from crude alcohol precipitates is laborious, most often utilizing CsCl gradients, gel filtration, ion exchange chromatography, or RNase, proteinase K and repeated alcohol precipitation steps. These methods also require considerable downstream sample preparation to remove CsCl and other salts, ethidium bromide and alcohol. Similar arguments extend when using any of these methods for purifying DNA fragments. A further problem with these methods is that small, negatively-charged cellular components can co-purify with the DNA. Thus, the DNA can have an undesirable level of contamination.
DNA can also be purified using solid phases. Conventional solid phase extraction techniques have utilized surfaces which either (1) fail to attract and hold sufficient quantities of DNA molecules because of surface design to permit easy recovery of the DNA molecules during elution, or (2) excessively adhere DNA molecules to the surface, thereby hindering recovery of the DNA molecules during elution. Conventional surface materials which cause these problems when utilized in solid phase extraction include silica surfaces such as glass and Celite. Adequate binding of DNA to these types of surfaces can be achieved only by utilizing high concentrations of chaotropes or alcohols which are generally toxic, caustic, and/or expensive. For example, it is known that DNA will bind to crushed glass powders and to glass fiber filters in the presence of chaotropes. The chaotropic ions typically are washed away with alcohol, and the DNAs are eluted with low-salt solutions or water. Importantly, RNA and protein do not bind. However, a serious drawback in the use of crushed glass powder is that its binding capacity is low. In addition, glass powders often suffer from inconsistent recovery, incompatibility with borate buffers and a tendency to nick large DNAs. Similarly, glass fiber filters provide a nonporous surface with low DNA binding capacity. Other silicas, such as silica gel and glass beads, are not suitable for DNA binding and recovery. Currently, the solid phase of choice for solid phase extraction of DNA is Celite such as found in Prep-A-Gene.TM. by Bio-Rad Laboratories. As with the crushed glass powders, high concentrations of chaotropes are required for adequate binding of the DNA to the Celite.